Prosecutor grills acid attack accused
In a tough day of cross-examination, Jan Pieterse was often on the verge of losing his temper under intense grilling.
|||Johannesburg - It was your intent to injure the victim – you had made the plans to find her in the dark – and I am going to be calling for you to be found guilty of attempted murder of Ines Antonio and her four-year-old daughter.
Prosecutor Mahange ka Mzizi sounded this warning on Monday to Jan Pieterse, the man accused of throwing acid onto Antonio, his former girlfriend.
This was as Ka Mzizi ended the closing cross-examination of Pieterse in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court.
In a tough day of cross-examination, Pieterse was often on the verge of losing his temper under intense grilling. At one stage, he appeared to swear under his breath in exasperation after he couldn’t answer the prosecutor’s questions. Magistrate Albertus Roux ordered him to calm down.
The focus of Monday’s cross-examination hinged on the day of the attack. Pieterse said Antonio had agreed to meet him to discuss his having access to the child.
He said he was sitting on the edge of the open boot of his car when she slapped him twice.
“I reached for the closest thing behind my back and found the tin, which I threw at her. I did not realise it contained drain acid,” he said.
When asked why he didn’t throw the cellphone which he was holding towards her, or why he didn’t use his crutch to ward her off, Pieterse couldn’t answer.
“It happened so quickly. I can’t explain what happened,” he kept saying.
He reluctantly showed the court how he threw the tin at Antonio, using a tin of coffee Ka Mzizi had brought in. Pieterse said there was only about 250g of acid in the tin, but the prosecutor pointed out that the surgeon who treated Antonio – who testified on Friday – said it was impossible that such a small amount of acid could have caused so much damage to her face, neck and chest. He said the tin was closed when he threw it and he didn’t know how it opened.
Pieterse said he too was burnt by the acid and it was only then that he realised Antonio must have been injured by it.
He said she didn’t scream as she ran away from him, so he didn’t know she was injured. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t then go to her and ask to help her, if this was the case.
Pieterse was also cross-examined on the numerous text messages he sent to Antonio after the attack while he was still on the run.
“In three instances in different messages you say she is going die,” Ka Mzizi said, to which Pieterse replied that it was just “a matter of speaking” and that he was responding to death threats made by Antonio’s new boyfriend.
Pieterse gave conflicting versions of why he had the acid in his car.
The trial continues.
anna.cox@inl.co.za
The Star